Mount Freda

With Mod & Low hazard we had set out to climb west ridge of Freda. BLT 5cm of dry new snow sits on supportive crust. Dug hand pit at 1600m on climbers right in photos. Noted old wind slab blocks cut out from sled tracks from a couple days previous. Hand pit results: 5cm stiff wind slab on surface, 10cm faceting crystals below overly crust (15cm total), wind slab slid easily, facets moderate and both were planar. Due to high consequence terrain and hard slab we pulled the pin on the complex terrain. We noted shooting cracks and blocks of the wind slab pulling out around our skis, but only where the old sled tracks were. i.e. couldn’t get same results in undisturbed snow. We opted for mellower terrain. ATV’ers with tracks noted shooting cracks in front of their machine on climbers left.